


I'm With You in Rockland

by proxydialogue



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s02e13 Dead Reckoning, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 20:22:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17250788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proxydialogue/pseuds/proxydialogue
Summary: The thing was, maybe Finch understood the enormity of what he did, showing up on that roof and rolling the dice with John, or maybe he didn't; but John couldn't just stop at "Don't mention it."





	I'm With You in Rockland

_I'm with you in Rockland  
_ _where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb_

 _I'm with you in Rockland  
__where there are twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale_  

 _I'm with you in Rockland  
_ _where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs all night and won't let us sleep._

 

_-Allen Ginsberg_

_"Howl"_

 

The rubble of Kara's car was still burning when they slipped off the roof and slunk back into the streetlight shadows of New York City. The vest was heavy and inert where they left it lying on the floor of elevator three, shed like an empty beetle husk from John's shoulders.

John made sure Carter caught a glimpse of them as they exited out the back so she would know they made it. He watched her figure track the flicker of their movement and then turn her shoulders away, deflecting attention, doing her job and betraying the system and saving their skins all at once. 

Finch limped as they made the sidewalk, though barely, and John, awake for nearly forty-eight hours, felt like he could have run the whole way home. Adrenaline was a funny thing like that.  

They didn't speak at first; walking silently for blocks until the red and blue flashes became localized lightning in the distance. Then Finch said, quietly, 

"You should go home and get some rest, Mr. Reese." 

John almost said, "No." He didn't want to go home. He wanted to get on his knees and bury his face in Finch's waistcoat. He wanted to get Finch in the dark somewhere and show him how good _Thank you_ could feel. John had been told by others, by Kara, that he had a grateful mouth, and if anyone deserved to sink their fingers into John's hair and get some use out of it, it was Finch. 

But John's body ached everywhere and his clothes smelled like blood and sweat and the pitch of semtex; and besides, that wasn't how he and Finch did things. So he got a firmer grip on his issues and said, 

"I'll get cleaned up. See you in a few hours, Finch." 

#

The loudest sound in the library four hours later was the scrape of Bear's claws off the floor and the thump of his happy tail against bookshelves. The second loudest was the sound of John trying to thank Finch for saving his life, and Finch tossing it right back; Return to Sender. 

"Finch? Thank you." 

"Please, don't mention it." 

In another life, John might have done just that, and they never would have talked about it again. In another life, he would have taken Kara's vest home and cannibalized the semtex for his own use, instead of leaving it in plain sight for the bomb squad to find. In this, his second life, John didn't set explosions, and he didn't take the people who mattered for granted. 

#

After John came to get him from Root, Finch went out of his way to thank John in little ways. He did _say_ "Thank you," but it was all the other gestures that let John know how much he meant it. The walls coming down a little bit. The occasional offhand comment about a food he liked or didn't like. The way his mouth twitched towards a smile when John started to pry, like John's small invasions of his privacy were their own little inside joke instead of a nuisance. 

And the thing was, maybe Finch understood the enormity of what he did, showing up on that roof and rolling the dice with John, or maybe he didn't; but John couldn't just stop at "Don't mention it." 

#

He tried using the personal information Finch had allowed him to gather over recent months. When Finch limped in the door one morning, John looked up from the book he was reading and said, "I think that one's my favorite too," about the green and yellow waistcoat. "The colors really work for you." 

The blood drained from Finch's face and his hand clenched around nothing. 

"Thank you, Mr. Reese," he said tightly and moved to the desk. 

#

So John tried cooking. He took cookbooks from the library and before he came into work he made homemade tortellini for lunch or bakes scones for breakfast. Finch always thanked him and ate whatever John gave him, but he looked like he was swallowing nails.

John didn't think it was the taste. 

#

John tried just smiling more, putting his grateful mouth to work in a way that wouldn't cross any boundaries. He just let a little of the new warmth he carried around—clutched like a prize at his core—show through, figuring at least there was no way for it to be misinterpreted; Finch could read John better than anyone.

But Finch walked into the first one like it was a brick wall. Then he began carefully skirting the others like they were landmines; eyes locked on the danger, and feet counting out a precise physical distance. 

#

It took nearly two weeks for John to find something that worked and, like most of John's true successes in life, it happened by accident. 

They were standing together behind a park bench, spying on a public school music teacher with uncertain ties to a black market organ smuggling ring. Finch was leaning forward, putting weight on his hands to take some of the strain off his lower back. John had the camera and was pretending to take pictures of pigeons and sparrows. He turned to get a better angle and his arm brushed against Finch's back. 

Finch, just for a second, leaned into the contact. 

John felt a rush of relief run through him. His heart turned over in his chest and then settled back down, happy. 

An hour later, as they were leaving, John tested his theory. He made a dumb crack about organ music and gently elbowed Finch in the side. Finch snorted, and the sound carried a tiny extra wavelength of warm exuberance that hadn't been there before. 

John smiled at the side of his employer's head. 

 _Thank you._  

#

So that's what he gave Finch in return for everything Finch had given him: someone who would touch, and wasn't afraid to be touched in return. John thought it probable that people had been assuming for all of Finch's life that his rigid need for privacy also mandated a need for physical space, but that wasn't the case at all. It was the opposite. Finch was skin starved. 

If Finch recognized what John was doing, he didn't mention it. And if John used each touch as an excuse to dig himself a little deeper—heartbreak was always coming for him, just a little ways down the line—well that was John's business. He harbored no delusions of a tender home.

#

Yellow-white streetlight came in through the window. The clock read three fifteen. They'd been up half the night. 

Finch's eyes were red, and the pressed line of his mouth meant that his back and neck were hurting him. He'd been sitting in that chair for seven hours and they still weren't done. Finch could hack the DOD and outfox the NSA, but rerouting an airplane mid flight took time. He had to start and maintain a long chain of events, make sure they dominoed in the right direction. An anonymous bomb threat at JFK followed by falsified reports of an oil spill on a Logan runway to make sure the _right_ flight was redirected…

John would probably never get used to the miracles Finch could work from a chair. 

John himself was itching inside-out because there was nothing for him to do. When the threat was at 39,000 feet and hundreds miles out of their reach, the computer was the only tool they had that could cross the distance. So John made sure Harold had water and tea, and that the room didn't get too warm or too cold. He took Bear for a few walks to keep him happy and minimize distractions. 

And then he just sat with his hands folded in his lap watching Harold work through the pain. 

It was hard, being forced to sit on the sideline, but it was nothing like sitting alone, filthy and drunk on a subway car, waiting to finish dying slow. 

_Thank you._

John got up and walked to the desk, staying inside Finch's limited peripheral vision so Finch could see him coming.

"Yes, Mr. Reese?" Finch asked shortly without looking over. 

"Just lending a hand," John said.  He circled around the chair and gently put his palm on the back of Finch's neck, just above his collar, telegraphing his intent and waiting for permission. Finch made a little noise in the back of his throat and leaned forward to give John better access. John pressed his fingertips into the muscle along the spine, pressed his other hand into the shoulder that was over compensating for the injury. Finch's hands didn't stop but his shoulders relaxed out of their cramped tension. He kept working while John carefully massaged the knots away. 

After he saved the day, Finch leaned back in his chair and gave John a little upside down smile. 

John's own face probably looked like he'd just been kicked in the chest. 

#

Carter noticed. 

"Getting involved with a partner," she said conversationally one day as they sat together in her car, staring out the windshield at a post office, "that can get complicated fast." 

"You thinking about asking Fusco out?" John deflected. 

"Oh yeah," she muttered. "I'm thinking about taking him to a carnival and winning him one of those big stuffed unicorns. Really romance him." She sighed. "I'm serious, John. You and Finch play it fast and loose as it is." 

"We're not involved," said John. 

"No? You wouldn't let me or Fusco within ten feet of you when you were strapped to that vest. Finch followed you all the way up to the roof so you could die together, or whatever crazy plan that was, and you let him."

" _You_ try talking Finch out of…well anything."  

"Do you know what I think it is? I think you can't say 'No' to him," said Carter. "Just don't put him up on a pedestal." 

"Joss, it's not—"

"I was here when he went missing, remember?" Carter interrupted. "I was here when you tore apart the whole city looking for him. I'm not saying stop caring about him. Caring is what makes people like us good at what we do. I'm just saying…" she trailed off. 

"What?" 

She shrugged.

"I'm saying let him be good to you." 

#

John adjusted Finch's tie before Harold Wren went out to slow-dance some bankers. It didn't need adjusting, Finch was always perfectly dressed, everything about him pressed and contained in geometries, but he tipped his chin up and stood still, letting John fuss, letting the backs of John's knuckles brush against the skin of his jaw. 

It made John want more, of course. If he had a grateful mouth, Finch had a forgiving one and John wanted it. And he wanted the things beneath it. He wanted the throat under the tie, and the skin under the wool and cotton. 

But this wasn't about him. It was about Finch. John was here to give, not take. 

He'd taken enough good things out of the world. 

#

John took a bullet in the shoulder. It happened. A nine mil eked past the sleeve of his vest. Finch was in his ear, calling John by his first name as soon as he heard the gunshots. 

"I'm fine, Harold." John gasped, sending a few thank you rounds over his shoulder as he threw himself around the corner. "Give me a way out of here." 

An hour was too long to wait to treat a gunshot wound, but sometimes there was no help for it. He put Jennifer Lancaster on a plane back to the UK and put the man she'd chased all the way to states, an abusive ex father in law, in the capable hands of Carter and Fusco. Then he made his way back to the library. 

Bear sniffed his hands and whined as John stumbled off the lift. 

Finch had cleared half the desk and covered it in medical supplies: bottles of rubbing alcohol and gauze, a bowl of water, towels. His hands were on John at once, gently pulling the jacket off, fumbling with the shirt buttons. 

"Bullet's still in there," John told Finch as he was led to a chair. His shoulder was numb and his arm was tingling in a way he didn't like. 

"As much as I find the general apathy of this city useful for maintaining anonymity," Finch muttered, fumbling with the Velcro on John's vest, "it doesn't inspire me with much confidence in humanity when a man can walk around in a blood soaked suit for hours without drawing attention. Lean forward." He peeled the vest off John's bloody skin and dropped it to the floor. 

"I like to think it's because I'm talented," John said, beginning to feel drowsy. He tipped his head back and let the tension run out of his body. Finch would take care of him.  

"Eyes open, Mr. Reese," Finch said. He was examining the wound, chair pulled close. His thigh rested against John's knee.  "I don't like the pallor of your face. Perhaps I should get you to the morgue." 

"Not necessary," John said. With an effort he picked his head up to look at Finch. "It's the fatigue, not the blood loss. And I haven't had to time to eat anything today." 

"Mmm," said Finch, skeptical, but he went back to work. John drifted while the slug was dug out and the hole stitched up. He came back around to the feeling of something warm and wet against his face. 

Finch was leaned in close, dabbing at a cut on John's cheek with a cloth. 

"I can take care of the superficial ones," John told him. Finch paused; eyes flickering over to John's before he resumed what he was doing.

"There are no debts between us, Mr. Reese," he murmured, still wiping blood away. "So if you're worried about accruing extra obligations—"

John's hand snapped up to Finch's wrist by itself; a reaction to the sudden twist in his gut. Finch froze. 

"Finch," John croaked. "I don't think of us like that. I haven't been counting." 

Finch considered this. 

"No," he said eventually. "I suppose you don't. But you _do_ feel obligated. I'm not…presuming to tell you how you feel exactly, but I know the sensation and I can recognize it when I see it elsewhere." 

John couldn't argue with that outright, but…

"You don't owe me either, Finch." 

"My obligations are less specific. They're owed to a lot of people, and if one considers my debts to the world alone, you can hardly be excluded from the larger group." 

John didn't know what the hell to say to that. 

"And then there's the bullet I just dug out of your shoulder," Finch added wryly. "Which you took on my behalf, following a purpose _I_ persuaded you to." 

John didn't let go.

"I'm here because I want to be," he said and waited, holding Finch's gaze until Finch nodded. He flayed his fingers off Finch's skin, let his hand fall back to his lap. 

Finch swabbed his cheek with alcohol. 

_Thank you._

# 

Fusco noticed, which is how John knew it was bad. 

They met for pretzels to exchange information. John bought, and slipped a flash drive into the napkin he handed over. 

"Look," said Fusco, right before John could leave, "I know I'm not exactly an expert on this stuff myself, but love is a two way street, you know." 

"Was your divorce a two way street, Lionel?" John asked, trying to stop the conversation. 

"No. It was one man getting run over by a train."

"So maybe you should be doing your job instead of trying to give me advice about the relationship I'm not in." 

"That's just my point," said Fusco. "Finch keeps trying to give you the moon, and you keep repaying him by jumping in front of bullets." 

John looked at him.  

"Stop doing that," Fusco said simply, and walked away. 

#

A day came with no number. Two days. 

They saw a movie. Finch took him to the New York Philharmonic. During intermission a woman in a dress so yellow it made John squint introduced herself by trailing her fingernails down his arm while he stood at the bar. John was polite while he waited on the bartender, but she made his skin crawl. The scrape of her nails on his jacket reminded him too much of Kara. Of what it felt like being the desperate shape on the end of a kite string, never knowing when the anchor would just _let go_ , letting him spin off into oblivion. It twisted something ugly in John's chest.

When the drinks came he said a flat, "Good bye," and bee-lined across the room to Finch. He handed over the wine glass and put his arm not-so-casually around Finch's back. 

Finch raised an eyebrow and glanced across the room to where yellow-dress was scrutinizing them. He leaned into John's side. 

"Running away?" Finch asked, teasing. 

"Full retreat," John replied. He turned his head and let his nose brush the hair just above Finch's ear. His heart settled back into his chest. 

Finch looked at him this time. John smiled. 

_Thank you._

#

The rule was that people shot at John; they didn't get to shoot at Finch. They weren't supposed to get the opportunity to try. 

Finch was out trailing a little old woman who scalped Broadway tickets on Sunday's after church. John was at her apartment, thumbing through about eight hundred _National Geographic_ magazines, looking for the ticket that was somehow putting her life in danger. Elsewhere in the apartment, in between pages of books and taped to the bottom of drawers, John had found wads of fifty dollar bills. Whatever she wanted it for, Mrs. Truebody didn't seem to be using her ill-gotten gains. 

"Got two here for The Lion King," John said. 

"I doubt Disney is our perpetrator," came Finch's dry voice through the earpiece. 

"Hamlet." 

"Well, that's just redundant." 

"Wicked." 

"That's rather in demand right now. Not worth killing over, but I suppose—" 

John heard three shots over the connection and then everything went quiet. 

"Finch?" He barked, already moving. He vaulted the couch and burst out the front door.  " _Finch_? Harold?" 

"Here, Mr. Reese." Finch gasped. 

"Where are you?" 

"I'm alright." 

" _Location, Harold. Now."_

"Sixty second and Columbus." 

It was a ten-minute walk from Mrs. Truebody's apartment. John ran it in three. Finch was unharmed, as promised, taking refuge in a Starbucks a block over. He looked pale and shaken; clutching a chai tea. John, after blowing in the door and drawing too much attention to himself, wandered over and tried to look casual while he ran his hands up Finch's sides and over his chest, checking for bullet holes. 

"I really am fine, Mr. Reese," Finch said, but a fine tremor ran through voice and he didn't pull away. 

"What the hell happened?" 

"I can only assume she noticed I was tailing her." 

"Mrs. Truebody shot at you?" 

"That bag she carries around is big enough to hide a cannon, I should be grateful it was only a handgun." 

John was relieved to find Finch's sense of humor intact, but his own nerves jangled from chest to fingertip like soup cans on string. He curled his palm around Finch's arm, grounding himself. It wasn't a thank you this time, it was just what he needed to keep himself together. 

"Let's go," he said.

"Where?" Finch asked. 

"You're going back to the library. I'm going to find our trigger-happy octogenarian." 

Finch frowned. John could feel him looking past the skin, poking around through John's motivations. 

"Come back to the library when you're done," Finch said at last. John blinked.  

_Where else would I go?_

#

Mrs. Truebody was in her apartment when John returned to it, but the money was all gone. Drawers in every room had been flung open, books lay scattered across the floor. And Mrs. Truebody, all four foot ten inches of her, stood in her living room with a Glock pointed at a red faced man roughly the size of Mount Rushmore. John arrived just in time to hear her telling the man that someone named Michael was gone, that Mrs. Truebody had given him the money to run, and now Mrs. Truebody was going to make sure Mount Rushmore couldn't follow after. 

John stepped around the doorway and clocked the big guy in the back of the head, thereby diffusing the situation. Apparently Mrs. Truebody trusted the police about as much as she trusted banks, but eventually John talked the gun out of her hand and called Carter in for the big guy. 

"Domestic abuse case," John told Finch as he hit the street again. "She's been saving for months. Trying to get Michael enough money to get out and get his own place." 

"She lives in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in New York, couldn't she simply have written the young man a check?" 

"The apartment isn't hers," said John. "Her son pays her a monthly allowance for food and keeps up the rent. And when the couple upstairs started having trouble she didn't think her son would understand why she couldn't just call the police." 

Finch hummed and John could tell he was thinking about something so he didn't interrupt. He walked the rest of the way back in silence. 

At the library John found Finch standing in the middle of the floor staring at the glass board and Mrs. Truebody's photograph. 

"Where's Bear?" John asked, passing the empty bed. 

"I threw his squeaky toy for him to fetch and he hasn't returned yet," said Finch, just as John heard a distressed sounding _squeak_ from elsewhere in the library. John leaned to look between the bookcases, but Bear must have wandered further into the labyrinth somewhere. Finch, meanwhile didn't turn around. 

John stood behind him, staring at the back of Finch's knees, for a little while. Then cleared his throat. 

"I came back," he said. Finch nodded. 

"Mr. Reese, I hope that—" Finch started, then cut himself off. Tried anew. "I try not to make a habit of listening to personal—" he stopped again and sighed. John stepped around to his side to find him pinching the bridge of his nose. 

John wanted to reach out and smooth a hand down Finch's arm, but he didn't think now was the appropriate time for a _Thank you._ Finch was clearly trying to apologize for something, though for what John couldn't fathom. 

"John," said Finch, brittle. "Sometimes I wish for your sake that I were the type of person who could trust people on faith rather than on invasive surveillance." 

John blinked. And burst into laughter. Finch looked at him, surprised. 

"I'm afraid I fail to see the humor, Mr. Reese," he said, piqued. 

"I spent a good part of my life _being_ a living a secret, Finch," John said. "So if you're worried you're not giving me enough privacy…" He shrugged. 

"What?" Finch prompted.  

"Don't," said John simply. "It's nice, having someone who knows everything for a change." 

"And what of your recent conversations with Detectives Fusco and Carter?" 

Ah. Well. 

"That's hardly a secret, Finch."

"I know. But, I thought…you've never said anything to me about it, so I thought perhaps…do you want me to pretend it is a secret? I'm really not very skilled at that particular kind of pretending and—" 

"Finch." John reached out and took hold of Finch's arms. "I'm not expecting anything. It's okay." 

"What, exactly, does the anything you're not expecting entail!" Finch cried, throwing his arms wide without quite throwing off John's hands. "How am I expected to behave from day to day _knowing_ that you are sitting right in _that chair_ " he gestured at the chair where John always sat to read, "or are standing beside me here, or—or are running off alone into another near death experience, and are in love with me? Am I expected to ignore that?" 

"Harold—" 

"What is infinitely worse is that you know that I know! So why have you never said anything? Whatever other stereotypes of masculinity you fulfill you're a very good communicator and I can't understand…it can't be the words themselves. If you think I'll be any more likely to leave you strapped to a bomb next time just because you didn't say it out loud, you have vastly mistaken the matter." 

"That's not what I think, Harold." 

"Then what on _earth_ do you want from me, John? Just tell me. Because despite the job we do, I have never had an equitable relationship with uncertainty." 

John dug around for a second, finding the right words. 

"I want everything," he said. "But you said it yourself, we're both probably going to end up dead, and if there's a chance that—if there was a way we could finish it and you could go back to Grace, then that's what I want for you. You saved my life the day you asked me to work with you. And you deserve better. So if I can give it to you, I will." There, that was simple enough. 

Harold, rather than looking mollified by John's answer, looked furious. 

"I deserve exactly all of the things which have come to me," he snapped. "Root was right about some things: I played God, I _made God,_ and I've had to accept the responsibility. I deserve whatever hardships come next, I've deserved every thing that's happened to me since I began this endeavor. _Grace_ deserves better. Joss Carter deserves better. Lord knows, Nathan deserved better. The dead, innocent people I couldn't save deserved better. But I was just hoping…" Harold ran out of steam and shook his head, breathing hard.  

John, helpless, baffled, reached up and laid his palm on the side of Harold's neck. 

"I was hoping that you and I deserved each other," Harold finished softly with his eyes closed. And then he opened them again and looked at John like…like what? Like John was a favorite puzzle he couldn't stop himself solving over and over again. Like John was a malfunctioning machine he couldn't bring himself to fix because the malfunctions were beautiful. John's voice caught in his throat. 

"Can I ask…" John managed after a minute. "Why did _you_ never say anything?"  

"I thought I was," said Harold. "You've never needed explicit instructions or explanations from me before. I thought you knew." 

And John was an asshole, because he had known. But instead of doing something about it, he'd started making the exact same mistake he made with Jessica, all over again. He stepped closer and, with a shaky breath, lowered his forehead to Harold's brow. 

"Why wouldn't you let me thank you?" John asked. 

"Because you were using it as an excuse not to say the other thing," said Harold, and he was right about that too. "And because I knew you were doing it for me and not for you. But when you started…" he put a hand on John's chest and brushed his thumb over John's sternum, "I'm afraid my desire overrode my moral objections." 

"Harold?" 

"Hmm?"  
  
"You're a good man. And you _do_ deserve better," said John, and then leaned down and kissed him before he could dissect any more of John's philosophies. 

He meant it as a statement of intent. To let Harold know that he'd been listening, and that he planned to do better and wouldn't be asking people to leave him behind anymore, especially not Harold. But Harold tasted like tea and _Thank you_ and _You had better dare_ , and Harold's shapeless demands, one after the other, were fed into John's mouth, and suddenly they were walking carefully backwards, and John was lowing Harold into his computer chair and sinking to his knees. 

"Is this for me or for you?" Harold asked breathlessly as John ran his hands up Harold's thighs. 

"It's for both of us," John answered. "If you want it." 

"I want it," Finch gasped as John's thumb found the juncture of his groin and thigh. "God, John." 

John hummed and leaned forward, trailed his nose up the hardening length beneath Harold's trousers. He went higher and nuzzled into the waistcoat and Harold's stomach; breathing the smell of dry cleaning and organization and anchors heavier than a kite string. Bracing himself on Harold's hips, he rose up on his toes just enough to meet Harold's mouth again, licking his way inside. Harold made soft sound. His fingers searched over John's shoulders and chest, undoing his tie and his collar, slipping underneath. 

John opened Harold's waistcoat and the shirt beneath and, unmooring himself from Harold's mouth, mapped his way across Harold's collarbone. He sank back down and started on the buttons on Harold's trousers. 

"I can't reach you from here," Harold complained in a wavering voice, hands skimming up John's neck and into his hair.  

"Next time," John promised. He folded the layers of fabric back and pulled Harold from his confines, licking up the length. Harold moaned, dropping his head back, fingerings tightening. John's cock twitched in empathy from within its own confinement. 

"This had," Harold murmured in between soft sounds, "better be—ah!…more than a 'Thank you.'" 

John swirled his tongue and hollowed his cheeks, came up to lick the head. "It's 'Thank you,'" he answered, pumped with his hand. "And 'You're Welcome.'" He took the tip in his mouth and sucked. Harold's hips jumped. "And 'I love you,'" Harold moaned outright. His hands pulled John's hair. "And 'Don't leave me.'" John sank his mouth back down. 

"John, I wouldn't ever leave you," Harold gasped. John moaned around his mouthful, his own hips jerking. "I _couldn't_ ever— _yes_ more of that please." Harold's words sank into his skin, into his blood, where they were the heavier liquid and sank right to the base. "Even apart from my responsibility I…" Finch shouldn't be thinking of responsibility right now. John sucked harder. "I— _Oh my. John."_

Harold's legs were trembling. He squirmed under John's mouth, breath heavy and loud. 

John's own arousal was acute between his legs. He was going to ruin these pants and it was a matter of when not if _,_ so while Finch whispered his name and bucked, John reached down with one hand took himself out just in time.

Harold twitched and started coming with a strangled _"Ah!"_ , his release flooding across John's tongue. The sound went right through John like a current. He squeezed his cock in his fist and came hard across the floor.  

Shivering, he licked Harold clean, and that _was_ a "Thank you." Then he shuffled closer and buried his face in Harold's stomach. Harold's hand swept through his hair. They breathed together. 

"John," Harold mumbled. 

"Joss said I should let you be good to me," John confessed, still buried in soft and wool. 

"I'd like it if you would," said Harold. "Frankly, your refusal to let me spoil you rotten has been incredibly frustrating." 

"I don't need care taking, Harold." 

"No," Harold agreed. "You seem to need only a very few things to get along. I'm just trying to be one of them." 

John lifted his head. 

"Thank you." 

Harold lifted John's chin with a finger and drew him up into a kiss. 

"Don't mention it." 

#FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Is it still cool to write POI?
> 
> Unbeta'd, alas. Please feel free to critique or point out mistakes! (Or to say something nice. I love that too.)


End file.
